IMPORTANT: Gotmead is moving - New Features

Hi guys,

You may have noticed some outages in the last couple months. For some reason the host we are using now has been having issues since about September, and I don't find it acceptable. So I have decided to move Gotmead to a more robust host who understands and supports our requirements better. It is painful to have to do this after we just moved in July, but apparently our hosting company bought or was bought by another company, and this is what is causing the problems.

I plan to do the move by the end of January, and the specific date will be announced. I will post a date and time frame once I've got everything in place and ready to switch over, and make sure it is on the site where you can find it.

Patrons: If you've a patron account and have email in your gotmead.com mailbox, you'll need to download it to your computer or it will be lost. So please download your email as soon as possible, and make sure to keep an updated local copy until after the move. See the end of this email for specific instructions on how to do this.

On a happier note, shortly after I perform this move, we will have some new features!!!!

• Gotmead will get a facelift - I'll be putting in a new look and feel that will be cleaner and easier to navigate, and putting in a matching one for the forum, including more menu links on the forum pages to get you to important parts of Gotmead quicker.
• New Forum software - we will be moving from SimpleMachines to VBulletin, a much more robust and stable forum package. Unlike SMF, which is a free package, VBulletin is a paid software solution that has a very robust professional support staff, and many new features:
  • a built-in BrewBlog function that offers many more features than we have now
  • The subscription function will be much easier to use
  • A member map showing Gotmead member locations
  • the ability to read the GM forum *on your mobile phone* (if you have internet access)
  • social networking tools to let you put your favorite topics up to digg and other sites
  • a commenting function to comment on Gotmead articles on the main site in the forum
  • and more! (it'll be a surprise!)

So get ready, folks, to greet a whole new Gotmead for 2008!

Yours in mead,

Vicky Rowe
Gotmead Founder

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Downloading your Gotmead.com email to your computer:
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The specifications for setting up your email download are as follows:
SMTP & POP server: mail.gotmead.com
Login: your Gotmead.com email address (all of it)
PW: you should know it, and if not, can reset it at mail.gotmead.com

Here are directions on setting up email in your local email program, so you can download your Gotmead.com email:

• Eudora
  
• Outlook
  
• Outlook Express
  
• Netscape
  

If you are using an email client not listed here, open the help file and search for 'pop email setup' or something similar.

Thanks for doing this, and my apologies for the inconvenience. Your email account for patrons will be re-setup on the new server, and you will receive instructions on how to access it once it is done. This will be done in such a way that you will not lose the ability to receive email at your account.
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Hey Wayne,

Yeah, your Gotmead email is wayneb@gotmead.com.

Yeah, the timing could be better, but after the outages, I'm pretty tired of the mess. So, we move. I wanted to wait until after the competitions, since I'll be gone 5 days, but I've gotten pretty good at this, after a move and 3 outages in the last 6 months, LOL.